The mustard greens bolted
May. 2nd, 2019 06:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beehammerIt was inevitable, I suppose, and now I know what to do for next year, but they've bolted. Most of it got turned into rabbit food, and I harvested it in such a way that I could experiment with whether or not the second-crop cut actually works (it seems to), but after a bit I went ahead and left the flowers as-is. They certainly weren't hurting anything, after all, and I used an heirloom variety when I planted. If it goes to seed, that'll hardly be the worst thing in the world.
So I have a planter that the passion flower vine has completely taken over, impolite thing that it is, studded with the dogged tropical sage which doesn't care that it has to grow sideways through this thicket and the tiny yellow flowers on four-foot stalks that the mustard greens have turned into. One of the mustard flowers is now home to a little flower crab spider.
I noticed her because she was a staggeringly bright white against the yellow when she first moved in. Almost a week later, she's successfully shifted her color to a pale yellow, and might even make it all the way to a matching color by the end of the week. Not that it matters to the pollinators she's hoping to catch--her skin reflects UV light in a way that makes her flower more attractive to them no matter how she looks to people. But it should help her hide from predators hoping to eat her.
So I have a planter that the passion flower vine has completely taken over, impolite thing that it is, studded with the dogged tropical sage which doesn't care that it has to grow sideways through this thicket and the tiny yellow flowers on four-foot stalks that the mustard greens have turned into. One of the mustard flowers is now home to a little flower crab spider.
I noticed her because she was a staggeringly bright white against the yellow when she first moved in. Almost a week later, she's successfully shifted her color to a pale yellow, and might even make it all the way to a matching color by the end of the week. Not that it matters to the pollinators she's hoping to catch--her skin reflects UV light in a way that makes her flower more attractive to them no matter how she looks to people. But it should help her hide from predators hoping to eat her.
